MetaFilter posts tagged with woohttp://www.metafilter.com/tags/woo
Posts tagged with 'woo' at MetaFilter.Thu, 09 Oct 2014 03:49:43 -0800Thu, 09 Oct 2014 03:49:43 -0800en-ushttp://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss60Coming soon to a health store near you?http://www.metafilter.com/143438/Coming%2Dsoon%2Dto%2Da%2Dhealth%2Dstore%2Dnear%2Dyou
<blockquote>AS THE SUN set over Lake Eyasi in Tanzania, nearly thirty minutes had passed since I had inserted a turkey baster into my bum and injected the feces of a Hadza man – a member of one of the last remaining hunter-gatherers tribes in the world – into the nether regions of my distal colon. I struggled to keep my legs in the air with my toes pointing towards what I thought was the faint outline of the Southern Cross rising in the evening sky. With my hands under my hips – and butt perched against a large rock for support – I peddled an imaginary upside down bicycle in the air to pass the time as I struggled to make sure my new gut ecosystem stayed put inside me.</blockquote>
Jeff Leach's attention grabbing opening starts a fascinating overview <a href="http://humanfoodproject.com/rebecoming-human-happened-day-replaced-99-genes-body-hunter-gatherer/">about researching gut fauna, microbiomes and the hunter-gatherer diet of the Hadza people of Tanzania</a> in the quest to rediscover humanity's "natural" guts. John Hawks <a href="http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/microbiome/hadza-microbiome-leach-2014.html">is unimpressed however</a>:
<blockquote>
For another thing, the Hadza have their own long evolutionary history. Their diet is merely one representative of the marked dietary diversity of recent hunter-gatherers. Other foraging groups, for example, the Ache of Paraguay, have a very different dietary composition. The study of these microbiomes is scientifically very interesting, and we may discover commonalities among them. But the idea that the microbiome of any Hadza person represents an "ancestral" or "healthy" human population is nonsense.
</blockquote> tag:metafilter.com,2014:site.143438Thu, 09 Oct 2014 03:49:43 -0800MartinWisse"Medicine is a very religious experience"http://www.metafilter.com/124341/Medicine%2Dis%2Da%2Dvery%2Dreligious%2Dexperience
The New Yorker's take on <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/02/04/130204fa_fact_specter?currentPage=all">Dr Mehmet Oz</a>. tag:metafilter.com,2013:site.124341Mon, 28 Jan 2013 17:47:50 -0800hat_eaterBoo to Woohttp://www.metafilter.com/114437/Boo%2Dto%2DWoo
<i><a href="http://alicerosebell.wordpress.com/2012/03/27/boo-to-woo/">Maintaining a culture where people feel scared to talk about how they feel or what they think about science (or, perhaps worse, are alienated from interacting with the scientific community so they talk amongst themselves) really isn’t going to do anyone any favours.<a></a></a></i>
<small>Via <a href='http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2012/03/31/ive-got-your-missing-links-right-here-31-march-2012/'>Not Exactly Rocket Science</a>.</small> tag:metafilter.com,2012:site.114437Sun, 01 Apr 2012 15:47:05 -0800latkes"Bad books" and how to spot them.http://www.metafilter.com/114137/Bad%2Dbooks%2Dand%2Dhow%2Dto%2Dspot%2Dthem
<a href="http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=418955">"The world is full of 'bad books'; not just uninteresting, or ill-informed, or morally repugnant books, but books that set out to present or defend positions that are insupportable in logic….Often these bad books become quite popular, and frequently gain a wider audience than good books on the same subjects. In discouraging my students from relying on such bad books, I began to wonder why they are popular."</a> Lovers of "bad books" may wish to <a href="http://ask.metafilter.com/208273/Bizarre-nonfiction-recommendations">consult the terrific answers in this somewhat related AskMe question.</a> In particular, I draw the reader's attention to <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=rjl20&keyword=Eliptony&filter=all">Ken Hite's Eliptony Core Samples</a>, "eliptony" being his word for "apophenic secret history/knowledge, 'magical thinking' of an ironic-credulous Fortean sort." tag:metafilter.com,2012:site.114137Fri, 23 Mar 2012 07:05:43 -0800SticherbeastFifteen-year-old takes on snake-oil salesman in between classeshttp://www.metafilter.com/96417/Fifteenyearold%2Dtakes%2Don%2Dsnakeoil%2Dsalesman%2Din%2Dbetween%2Dclasses
A 15-year-old Welsh schoolboy with Crohn’s disease has taken on the peddler of a supposed “alternative remedy” which is, in fact, a dangerous industrial bleach. Despite initial criticism from others with Crohn’s, he is making <a href="http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2010/09/24/teenager-questions-council-on-web-cure-91466-27332161/#ixzz11fMdhBsw">considerable headway</a>. When 15-year-old <a href="http://twitter.com/rhysmorgan">Rhys Morgan</a> was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, he logged onto a <a href="http://www.crohnsforum.com/">support forum</a> in search of advice and, well, support. Fishing around the site, he stumbled upon discussion of an alternative remedy called <a href="http://www.miraclemineral.org/">Miracle Mineral Solution</a>, or MMS. It is promoted by one <a href="http://www.miraclemineral.org/aboutauthor.php">Jim Humble</a> as a panacea, capable of curing not only Crohn’s, but HIV, cancer, and a whole host of other diseases. Understandably sceptical, Rhys Googled MMS and discovered the <a href="http://www.fda.gov/Safety/MedWatch/SafetyInformation/SafetyAlertsforHumanMedicalProducts/ucm220756.htm">FDA advice</a> on it. When used as directed, MMS is in fact chlorine dioxide, a powerful industrial bleach capable of causing nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and severe dehydration.
Alarmed, he alerted forum users to its dangers, and was <a href="http://thewelshboyo.wordpress.com/2010/08/10/bleachgate/">rewarded</a> with an onslaught of criticism and a 10 day site ban.
He raised the matter with the Medical Health Regulatory Agency, Welsh Health Minister Edwina Hart and the Advertising Standards Agency, and Cardiff City Council's trading standards department. As a result, the UK’s Food Standards Agency issued <a href="http://www.food.gov.uk/news/newsarchive/2010/sep/mms">its own warning</a>, urging people to report anyone they discovered selling MMS. A Guardian <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/sep/15/miracle-mineral-solutions-mms-bleach">article</a> on his campaign was picked up by the <a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/News/Malaria%20drug%20endangers%20Kenyan%20lives%20/-/1056/1012418/-/11e26ja/-/index.html">press</a> in Kenya, where Humble claims to have treated 1,000 people suffering from malaria. As a result, the Kenyan Government also issued warnings about the use of MMS as a remedy for malaria.
The only downside is that as Rhys’s crusade against teh crazy continues, he keeps finding his school physics and chemistry lessons interrupted by <a href="http://thewelshboyo.wordpress.com/">demands to deal with the press</a>. Despite the furore, the <a href="http://thewelshboyo.wordpress.com/about/">About</a> page on his blog still simply says, with great modesty - "Hello everyone. My name is Rhys Morgan. I’m 15 years old and I have Crohn’s disease. I’m rather new to the skeptic community." tag:metafilter.com,2010:site.96417Thu, 07 Oct 2010 04:01:31 -0800penguin pieAIDS woohttp://www.metafilter.com/78323/AIDS%2Dwoo
Yet more AIDS <a href="http://doctorrw.blogspot.com/2006/12/frequently-asked-questions-on-woo-and.html">w</a><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/11/the_woo_aggregator.php">o</a><a href="http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=10">o</a> in Africa. First, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thabo_Mbeki">Thabo Mbeki's</a> AIDS policy lead to an <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/27/south-africa-aids-mbeki">estimated 300 000 additional deaths</a> in South Africa. Now, <a href="http://www.skeptics.org.uk/article.php?dir=articles&article=homeopathy.php">magic water</a> peddler <a href="http://www.dynamis.edu/new/jeremy.html">Jeremy Sherr</a> proposes testing homeopathic remedies for AIDS with two groups, one group on ARV and one on homeopathy, as "<a href="http://semiskimmed.net/woo/jeremy_sherr_AIDS/two-meetings.html">Placebo treatment is considered unethical in AIDS"</a> (<b>note: archived link from <a href="http://semiskimmed.net/woo/jeremy_sherr_AIDS/">here</a> via <a href="http://www.layscience.net/node/467">here</a></b>) . After a <a href="http://www.quackometer.net/">number</a> of <a href="http://thebiologista.blogspot.com/"> <a href="http://holfordwatch.info/">science</a> <a href="http://www.badscience.net/">bloggers</a> <a href="https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4587934457078713047&postID=8703100559062015503&isPopup=true">pointed out in the comments</a> that, due to the nature of <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(05)67177-2/abstract">homeopathy</a>, the trial would be inherantly unethical under the terms of the <a href="http://www.wma.net/e/policy/b3.htm">Declaration</a> of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Helsinki">Helsink</a>, not to mention morally questionable, the <a href="http://gimpyblog.wordpress.com/2009/01/15/jeremy-sherr-does-not-act-alone-but-with-the-support-of-the-homeopathic-establishment/">re-write </a>began. Via the ever wonderful <a href="http://gimpyblog.wordpress.com/">Gimpy</a>. Much, much more in the links, including serious questions raised about funding recieved for this trail and the ethical standards in place at some higher education and CAM institutes. tag:metafilter.com,2009:site.78323Fri, 16 Jan 2009 03:24:39 -0800fatfrankThe Release of Inner Energy, the Release of Fearhttp://www.metafilter.com/61470/The%2DRelease%2Dof%2DInner%2DEnergy%2Dthe%2DRelease%2Dof%2DFear
For your lunchtime (or teatime, or bedtime) wooing pleasure: In which William and Conan are inadvertently embroiled in something much <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOzkmyDMQIc">sillier</a> than they will ever comprehend. [warning: WooTube] tag:metafilter.com,2007:site.61470Thu, 24 May 2007 12:23:39 -0800oneirodynia